One Frame At A Time: Nebraska

At least this is a Michigan blog and not a Michigan/Tigers one—I think we'd be in full post-Horror kittens mode right now. Except with more Tim McCarver. Pass the cyanide, please.

[The rest of the TOTALLY FUN gifs after THE JUMP.]

There were two very close calls in the game worth taking a look at again. First, Roy Roundtree's overturned catch from the first half:

When I saw it live, I thought that was a play that relied entirely on the call on the field—either way, there wouldn't be enough evidence to overturn. My opinion hasn't changed.

The call on the first Russell Bellomy interception, however, appeared correct at first view and stands up to the gif test:

P.J. Smith probably hit every green light on his drive home, but Russell Bellomy tackled him on his doorstep; Bellomy then threw his wallet, containing six different forms of identification, directly to a police officer.

Despite the entirely depressing nature of the game, the defense was a bright spot, and Craig Roh stood out most of all:

Please run the hell out of bounds and avoid all possible contact in the future when possible; that cutback was not worth the risk vs. just cruising out of bounds. There were 3 more guys to truck you when the fist two were just going to escort you to the sideline, you are not Walter Payton it's ok to run out. This offense can not run without you (apparently). Please stay safe!

I'm fine with him playing football, you know contact sport and all... however on that particular play I thought the cutback wasn't the best choice when he had at least 5 guys coming down on him w/o blockers.

I guess my point is he has to realize when to take contact and when to play it safe since he's so damn important to the offense. I also am not in love with all the dive into the line calls that he gets piled up on either... let a running back take that hit! I want him to still be around and functional for the OSU game, and hopefully the chanpionship game after that. Without him we're toast this year...

Now that I think about it, I don't want him on the kick return team either!

Speaking as a physician and surgeon, it would appear that denard came down on his ulnar nerve. In other words, he hit his funny bone. It is quite clear from the video that his elbow hits the turf first on the insdie edge where the ulnar nerve runs in a very exposed location. Next you see him grab the pinky side of his hand as his face goes into an ugly expression of pain.

If the nerve is lightly struck, you get that funny bone tingling, but if the nerve is pinched hard between the bone and something else (the field), it produces excrutiating pain that can last for days or longer. It feels like the little finger and half of the ring finger are being torched. In addition to the pain, you lose the sense of touch on those same fingers. In other words, the only sensation that comes from there is burning pain. There is no weakness from this because the nerve is not used for the muscles. But the numbness cause issues with your grip as you might imagine. You can also experience hyperesthesia, which means that touching the fingers hurts, like anyone who has had shingles can tell you about. None of this is good news for the throwing hand of a quarterback.

It also seems as though this is at least the scond time he has done this in a game this season. I wonder if it has happened in practice as well. The more times you do this, the more sensitive the nerve becomes. After repeated trauma, it takes less and less of a pinch on the nerve to cause the same symptoms.

The elbow can certainly be padded and I hope they do this. Since it would seem that this is a recurrent problem, I would think that Denard may consider a surgery which moves the nerve into a less vulnerable spot. Certainly this would not happen until after the season.